The Better Germany in War Time Part 21

Dr. S. lectures on first aid to C.'s squad. During the course of a lecture on the heart he referred to a visit paid to the local hospital.

In the hospital was a man who had been a prisoner in Germany. Dr. S.

asked the man about his treatment. In the course of the talk the man said that if he had his choice he would prefer to be in a German hospital! Dr. S. smiled when he related this. 'This is not the kind of statement,' he said, 'that is published in the newspapers!'"

There comes into my mind the photograph of a British prisoner in a German camp. The boy's mother was delighted to see him looking so well.

The photograph was the more striking as the lad was wounded in the stomach at the time he was taken prisoner.

From a private letter: "My nephew was in the Canadians and was wounded in the spine in a recent advance.... He was brought back to London, where I saw him, and he died in hospital shortly after. He told me himself all about it. He lay for several hours after being wounded, unable of course to move. When the ambulance came up, the stretcher bearers were Germans-prisoners of war. They saw he was cold and took off their own coats and wrapped him up. All the while they were under fire from the British guns.[51] One of them was wounded in the arm by shrapnel as they were carrying him, but he kept his hold. He called to his mate to let down the stretcher, but till it was on the ground, he never flinched. My nephew knew what this meant, and as he thought of what had been done for him by an 'enemy' his face lighted up, as he said, 'That man is a hero!' And he added, 'We don't feel hard towards them at the front.'"

Again, a wounded soldier who had been prisoner in Germany says: "I could not have been better treated, and I know ninety companions who say the same. But this is not the sort of story the newspapers want." People very generally do not like to hear good of an enemy. In war-time this very human objection may become an important cause of continued strife.

(cf., p. 108.)

In the following, Philip Gibbs tells of a German doctor who tended friend and foe alike. "A number of Germans ... -about 250 of them-stayed in the dug-outs, without food and water, while our sh.e.l.ls made a fury above them and smashed up the ground. They had a German doctor there, a giant of a man with a great heart, who had put his first-aid dressing station in the second line trench, and attended to the wounds of the men until our bombardment intensified so that no man could live there.

"He took the wounded down to a dug-out-those who had not been carried back-and stayed there expecting death. But then, as he told me to-day, at about eleven o'clock this morning the sh.e.l.ls ceased to scream and roar above-ground, and after a sudden silence he heard the noise of British troops. He went up to the entrance of his dug-out and said to some English soldiers who came up with fixed bayonets, 'My friends, I surrender.' Afterwards he helped to tend our own wounded, and did very good work for us under the fire of his own guns, which had now turned upon this position." (_Daily Chronicle_, July 5, 1916.)

It must be easy to tell bad stories of every furious fight, but the right spirit is surely that shown by Mr. Gibbs in another despatch (_Daily Chronicle_, July 7, 1916): "The enemy behaved well, I am told, to our wounded men at some parts of the line, and helped them over the parapets. This makes us loth to tell other stories not so good."

Again, on July 21, 1916: "It was the turn of the stretcher-bearers, and they worked with great courage. And here one must pay a tribute to the enemy. 'We had white men against us,' said one of the officers, 'and they let us get in our wounded without hindrance as soon as the fight was over.'"

"'This war!' said a German doctor, 'We go on killing each other to no purpose.'" (_Daily Chronicle_, July 5, 1916.)

And on this side:

The wife of a petty officer described to me the arrival of the first batch of wounded. It happened that these were chiefly Germans. "I thought I wouldn't care so long as I didn't see our poor boys carried up," she said, "but when I saw them, Germans or not, I couldn't help crying." I gathered that the sight of the sufferers swept away every feeling but sympathy amongst the onlookers. She told me of the funerals to the little churchyard outside the barracks, and of the "loneliness" of the dead Germans. She had wept by those nameless graves, thinking of those that belonged to these strangers.-Louie Bennett in the _Labour Leader_.

I remember a c.o.c.kney boy of fifteen telling me how at Southend he had gone for fun to see wounded Germans brought ash.o.r.e. But the fun died out in his heart at the reality, and he ran away.

The little incident I will next mention has special charm because of the beautiful spirit shown by every one concerned. A wounded German, Albert Dill, lay in hospital here. He was asked by a visitor if there was anything that he specially wished for. He answered. "Flowers for the dear English nurse, more than anything else." The flowers were sent and his letter of grat.i.tude is touching. There were far more than he expected, he said, and his joy was the greater. "The pleasure of the nurses and the doctors too was great when they saw this rich gift of flowers (diese reiche Blumenspende).... This day will often remind me of the good and self-sacrificing nursing that I have had here in this hospital." And the "dear English nurse" writes: "The flowers you sent at the request of Albert Dill were indeed most beautiful.... I have been nursing the German patients for a considerable time, and their grat.i.tude has always been most marked. We sincerely hope that while carrying out our duties we have been able to relieve their sufferings, and have perhaps helped them to bear the misfortunes of war a little more patiently." This little incident is surely the greatest of victories, for it is a victory of the spirit.

Nurse Kathleen Cambridge, who was near Mons at the time of the British retreat, spoke as follows of some of her experiences (_Daily News_, January 8, 1916):

After the battle I was very pleased to be of a.s.sistance to the wounded, for whom my mother and I had arranged an ambulance. It was at four o'clock that I saw the first party of British prisoners being marched through from Mons to Brussels. A halt was called just outside the Chateau. The Germans were very kind at that time and offered their prisoners cigarettes and gave them water from their bottles.

Two men, exhausted by terrible wounds, dropped into the ditch.

The baron went off to ask if we could be of a.s.sistance, and the German doctor told him that he would be grateful for any help, as he had to get on to Brussels and could not wait. The two men were brought into the chateau. We did all we could for them, and gradually, after some weeks, they recovered.

Neglect and honourable conduct are both recorded in the next cutting from the _Manchester Guardian_ (September 17, 1917).

A Scotsman wounded at La Ba.s.see had lain for eight days in a German dug-out which our troops had captured and from which they had been driven. One party of Germans peering into the darkness had bombed him, and added one or two slight wounds to the twenty-two he already possessed. He managed to signal to the second bombing party some days later, and was carried away to the field hospital, where hundreds of wounded Germans were lying. Here he was found by a young German engineer who had spent years in Glasgow and Liverpool. "Hullo, Jock," the man said kindly, "pretty bad, aren't you? I'll fetch a doctor for you."

He did so, and the wounds were roughly dressed. Nothing more was done for eight days, when the Scot managed to attract the attention of some visiting officer to the fact that his wounds were in a dreadful condition, septic and suppurating.

"He was furious," said the Scot: "made no end of a row about it, and I was attended to at once. I have nothing to complain of about my treatment when in hospital in Germany."

From the _Daily News_, April 16, 1918:

Here is a story vouched for by a young soldier now in hospital in the North of England:-"I was shot in both legs during the recent fighting. As I lay, helpless and almost hopeless, for our lads had been pressed back, a German officer, also wounded, crawled up to me. He spoke English fluently, and it turned out that he had once worked in the town from which I come. When I told him I was the last of the family left to my widowed mother, and that I feared it would settle her when she heard I had gone too, he said: 'All right, old chap; we'll see what can be done.'

As soon as it was quite dark he got me to pull myself on to his back. In this way he crawled to within earshot of our outposts, and only left me and dragged himself in the direction of his own lines when he knew my cry had been heard."

From the same paper of April 11, 1918, I take the story told by a naval prisoner exchanged through Switzerland:

The sailor had one eye blown out and the other temporarily damaged by a sh.e.l.l in a concentrated fire which sank his destroyer in the battle of Jutland. He was picked up by an already overcrowded British boat after swimming about for an hour almost blind. Then a German destroyer ran alongside and took aboard the whole boatload.

The voice of an officer hailed from the deck: "Don't forget the British way, lads, wounded first." "He spoke such good English that I took him for a Scottie," said my informant, "and I thought it was a British destroyer that had picked us up. I was hauled aboard, and I saw him look at my face and turn away.

'What's the matter, Jock?' I said. 'I'm not a Jock,' says he, 'I'm one of the Huns.' 'What, ain't this a British ship?' says I. 'Throw me back into the sea, and let me take the chance of being picked up by one of ours.' 'It can't be done, sonny,' he says. 'You've got to go to Germany. But you'll be exchanged all right. You're disabled.' It seems he had a relative in London, and knew England well. All the time British ships were chasing us and sh.e.l.ling us; and he hung a lifebelt near me, and said: 'If the British Fleet sink us that will give you a bit of a chance yet.'"

The following is from _Lloyd's News_, May 12, 1918, under the heading of "Back from the dead":

Three years ago a Twickenham resident, Mrs. Maunders, received official news from the War Office that her husband, one of "The Old Contemptibles," had been killed in action.

Thrown on her own resources, and having a small family to keep, she struggled on, and a very good offer of marriage came along and was accepted. A few days before the wedding a letter came from the supposed dead husband, stating that he was badly wounded and left for dead on the battlefield, but was found by the enemy and nursed back to health.

The following is from a private letter: "I am happy to be able to tell you that through the German Flying Corps dropping a message, we heard of [my son's] safety early in July. He writes to us and appears to be well and comfortable.... He was shot through the neck. He has happily quite recovered after being about four weeks in hospital. He has spoken only of kindness and attention from doctors and nurses."

Again: "As you have probably heard by now, I am a wounded prisoner of war.... I myself got my shoulder rather badly smashed up by a machine gun which knocked me out, and I lay in a sh.e.l.l hole for about ten hours while our guns strafed like h.e.l.l and I expected every moment to be blown to bits. However, I at last managed to crawl up and stagger along, and as I was in German lines, ran into a lot of Germans. They were awfully kind to me, gave me food and drink and bound up my wound, and then sent me along to the dressing station. I am at present in hospital in Belgium and expect to go to Germany almost directly. My address at the back will find me." What follows from the same correspondent has some bearing on the feeding in hospitals. "You mentioned in your last letter whether you could send me anything. Well, dear old chap, if you are feeling an angel, plenty of good plain chocolate and other delicacies would be awfully welcome, also some Gold Flake cigarettes." It was only "delicacies," it will be observed, that were asked for. This was in the middle of 1917.

The next extract is from _Common Sense_, July 13, 1918:

"The following experience of an Ullet Road boy, Private Arthur Bibby (6th S.W.B.), who is now recovering from a severe wound, is recorded in the Ullet Road Church _Calendar_ for July:

The part of the line in which Private Bibby was placed was subjected to a heavy bombardment, after which the enemy delivered an attack. The order to retire was given "and our section made for a road which led into a village, but about a hundred yards up the road I received a bullet wound which pa.s.sed under the shoulder-blade and pierced a portion of the lung."

"Private Bibby was forced to lie down by the side of the road, and shortly afterwards an advance party of the Germans came along delivering their attack. The first wave swept past, but of those who followed one stopped to give Private Bibby a cigarette, another took off his wounded foe's equipment and made it into a pillow for his head, and put his water-bottle within reach, while a third made a pad out of his field dressing with which he staunched the wound. As he turned and followed his comrades, he a.s.sured his patient that the Red Cross would come soon.

"A German Red Cross orderly came up shortly afterwards, and was engaged in dressing the wound when the order came for the Germans to retire before a British counter-attack. 'About ten minutes after the last had pa.s.sed down the road our lads, counter-attacking, were creeping up the road, and it was not long before the R.A.M.C. lifted me on a stretcher and took me to the advanced dressing station.'

"We congratulate Private Bibby on the recovery he is making from a severe wound, and are glad that he is able to bear this testimony of grat.i.tude to a company of unknown but chivalrous foes.

"It is, of course, well known that the Northcliffe Press refuses to print experiences of this kind."

"Many of our wounded have pa.s.sed through the same conditions of captivity and deliverance. They bear witness to the honourable conduct of the German Army doctors (majors). Here, for example, is one of the stories that I have heard: 'I found myself in a ditch after the battle, unable to move. A German doctor came by; he gave me bread and coffee and promised to come back in the evening if he could, or next day. That night and the following day pa.s.sed without my seeing any one; the time seemed long. In the evening he came: 'I had not forgotten you,' he said, 'but I have had no time.' He had me carried away and gave me careful attention.'" (_La Guerre vue d'une Ambulance_, par L'Abbe Felix Klein, Aumonier de l'Ambulance americaine, p. 80.)

The writer continues: "Facts of this nature deserve to be recorded.

Amidst this setting loose of horrors and hates it would be well to lay stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This morning I see that an article has been pa.s.sed in one of the most widely read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be 'struck down like wild beasts,' 'butchered like swine'! Nothing, not even the sack of Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury." The French soldiers, M. L'Abbe indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian regulars and speak well of the reserves. "They are men like us, married men, fathers of families, fair-minded." But for the doctors there is often a good word: "Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignes, nous a donne du cafe, du pain." "Le major nous a soignes et donne de la soupe."

There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are indeed _rarae aves_. "The animosity of the English against the enemy,"

says the Abbe, "is greater even than ours." "In the evening," runs one narrative, "the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux)." When the Germans came, "some looked askance," but the captain said the Frenchmen had been kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)

WHOSE FAULT?

The poor soldiers, obliged to obey orders under penalty of death, defending (as they believe) their homes from wanton attack, are surely, in the ma.s.s, but little to blame. The blame rests elsewhere. A body of Russian prisoners was brought into a village in East Prussia. The sufferings of the inhabitants during the invasion had made them bitter, and from the crowd of onlookers there was a scornful outcry. "At that one of the prisoners bent forward, shook his head and said slowly, with great, sad eyes, 'It is not your fault, and it is not mine.'" (Dr.

Elisabeth Rotten in _Die Staatsburgerin_.) Looking at it all with fresh knowledge, after more than three years of war, I feel that this Russian spoke for all the peoples, "It is not your fault, and it is not mine."

Meanwhile there still goes on what my wounded friend, writing from Rouen described as "this orgy of slaughter, this incredible and criminal lunacy."

AN ORDER AGAINST KINDNESS.

A girl who, with others, was attending to the enemy wounded, writes: "Doubtless we should have more consolation among our little soldiers, since here _we are forbidden to give little kindnesses and attention;_ but I believe that before the end we shall disobey the order, because we put our hearts into our devotion and our pity." (_La Guerre vue d'une Ambulance_, p. 116.) It is a little startling to learn of orders against kindness to enemy wounded. In a country one of whose chief newspapers advocated slaughter of the enemy like swine, such orders seem unwise.

They can surely scarcely be made except when we wilfully blind ourselves and imagine that our enemies do not share our humanity.